


Alive

by Shadowy_Dumbo_Octopus



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Anal Sex, Banter, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, First Time, Fluff, Kissing, Lots of kissing, Love Confessions, Low Chaos Corvo Attano, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Post-Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, Post-DotO, Some angst, Tender Sex, The Outsider Learns Emotions, This is the most explicit thing I've ever written AAAAA, idk how to tag this sorry, shifting pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 21:54:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18600136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowy_Dumbo_Octopus/pseuds/Shadowy_Dumbo_Octopus
Summary: The Outsider awakens in the mortal world, human once more and with something to settle with Corvo. Post-DotO.Thank you to @bluebeholder for dragging me into this fandom and beta-ing this mess of a fic for me, and to her and @adrift-me for the idea of the Outsider's name!





	Alive

Living hurt.

This, as the man who once was the Outsider found out, was an unfortunate reality all mortals had to deal with. It came to him the moment he took his first breath and immediately gagged, hands flying up to his neck as he gasped like a drowning man, unable to catch a gasp of air as if his lungs weren't built for breathing it. A creature of the sea, thrown out on the land.

“Pull yourself together,” Billie’s voice cut through his panic, rising like the tide. It was sharp and yet gentle as she placed a warm, comforting hand on his shoulder. “Slow, deep breaths. I didn’t go through all the trouble of dragging you here for you to die on me like this. Slow breaths, in, out. Like this.”

He watched her breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, the action coming to her so naturally. No wonder - it was coded in her very being as a living creature. Him, on the other hand? He didn’t remember his mortal days, just like land animals didn’t remember the time when their ancestors swam beneath the oceans. It was something that had left him along with his blood gushing out of his throat, slit with one swift move by those who didn’t understand what they were taking from him.

He got the hang of it eventually - as if he had another choice - lungs burning with breath infinitely warmer than the Void he grew so accustomed to. He wanted to weep, like a newborn drawing its first breath, the reality around him so unfamiliar even despite him having seen it grow, flourish, and decay for the past four thousand years. Like coming to a city after only reading about it in a book; he recognised some elements around him, but having to interact with them, feel the wind biting his skin and the taste of sea salt on his lips, was a different matter entirely. His body shivered from the cold as he fell to his knees, the ground rough and uneven, his limbs weak and unaccustomed to the material world. After a while they began to burn, pins and needles running through them as blood coursed through once empty veins and allowed him to move, albeit with difficulty. He could feel the uneven ground studded with pebbles and debris through the soles of his shoes as he stood up shakily, brushing his hair out of his eyes and startling at how they felt beneath his fingertips. Every sensation was amplified, his skin unused to contact and overly sensitive so that even his own touch was a novelty.

Billie watched him curiously, her posture relaxed, arms folded, movement coming to her as naturally as breathing.

“Weak as a newborn kitten,” she remarked with the smallest of smiles.

He scowled at her, not at all amused by his predicament, but the ridicule was immediately forgotten when what felt like a jagged harpoon ran him through, piercing his heart.

Oh yes, feelings. Emotions. A different kind of pain entirely, much worse than the physical one could ever hope to be. 

Back when he was still the Outsider, he could feel shadows of emotions: a crumb of curiosity here, a dash of disappointment there, ghosts of what he used to experience in another life. Now, though? Everything hurt.

_ Everything. _

The embarrassment at Billie having to see him stumbling around like this; the strange, foreign joy that came with being alive, the survival instinct kicking in; the fear of the unknown that wasn’t really unknown; the…

“Corvo,” he choked out, salt-scoured voice spitting out his first word on the mortal plane, the name of the one being he craved more than anything in existence. “Corvo Attano.” Back when he was still a creature of the Void, all the Outsider could feel towards the man was fascination with maybe a subtle hint of fondness, nothing more. Now, though?

He felt everything, so strongly that the mental pain turned physical, a thousand hooks tearing his ribcage open to reveal…

Affection. So much affection that it made his knees turn weak once more. Affection for the man who lost everything, but still managed to give everything he had to save his daughter. Affection for the man who could have drowned Dunwall in blood, but chose not to simply because it didn't lie in his nature. Affection for the man who slept by the shrines that used to honour the Outsider because the proximity soothed him, who sometimes kissed the Mark on his hand for good luck, who changed the tide of a doomed country and changed the heart of a being who wasn't supposed to have one. 

Longing. So strong that it made him want to weep, clutching his chest as his freshly awoken heart shattered into pieces, cutting into his fingertips, blood dripping on the sand only to be washed away by the tide. Longing to see Corvo again, hear the sound of his voice, drown in his eyes like sailors drowned in the abyss, touch his warm hands and caress the now-useless Mark with his thumb (perhaps even press a kiss to it, kiss him back for once after all those years), listen to his beating heart and wonder if their beats could ever sync, breathe as one, brush his hair away from his sleeping face, pale fingers ghosting over his lips… perhaps even, if he would allow him, he could…

Love. 

He loved Corvo. 

The realisation almost made him black out with the intensity with which he experienced it, knocking freshly taken breath out of his lungs as the thin coat of dust that clung to his skin was cut through by tears that streamed down his cheeks. Were emotions always this bothersome? Was this why they drove men to wars, conquests, feats of bravery and foolishness alike as they tore through fire and blood, storms and jaws of sea-beasts, blazing gunfire and gleaming swords, just for a single moment spent with those who meant the world to them? Was this why poets wrote thousands of forests’ worth of sonnets and poems, epics and tragedies about doomed lovers and the power of love braving even the cold, merciless clutches of death?

“The palace,” he whispered, looking down towards the line of buildings not too far away from where he and Billie stood. “I need to get to him.” 

~~~

Corvo stood in his room in the Duke’s palace, gaze locked on the back of his hand - more specifically, the Mark that adorned it, a gift from someone he wished he didn’t care about as much as he did. It was… he couldn’t quite put it into words, but the Mark felt empty, as if there was a void behind it - a different type that usually resided there. Take away all light, and you’ll be left with the darkness. Take away the darkness, and you’ll be left with the Void. Take away the Void and you’ll be left with…?

He tried to Blink. Nothing happened. He tried once more, with a similar outcome.

“Lost interest so soon, old friend?” he hummed, sitting down on the bed with a somewhat resigned sigh. He knew that the Outsider would grow bored of him eventually, discard him like a capricious child would discard an old toy upon receiving a new one. He just didn’t expect it to happen so quickly, so suddenly. It wasn’t like the being owed him a goodbye, but with all the attention he had given him, Corvo hoped to be graced with one nonetheless. Why did he get so attached, anyway? He was nothing but a toy, yet another actor in the never-ending play put up for the Outsider’s amusement; he was only useful when he was fascinating; take that away, and he’s nothing.

Still, he had hoped that maybe, just maybe there was something else hidden behind the fascination. After all, even the most capricious brat could hold some fondness for his toys, could he? Corvo didn’t know which option hurt more: that the Outsider left him because he didn’t care, or did, but not enough.

He was startled out of his thoughts by a knock on the door; a servant, leaning against the doorframe to catch his breath. A stranger came through the front gate, begging to speak with him specifically. Something in his voice made it impossible to refuse him. 

“Very well,” Corvo sighed wearily, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He wasn't in the mood for dealing with strangers, or anyone for that matter, but mayhap it would get the thoughts of the Outsider out of his head. “Bring him here.”

The stranger, as it turned out, wasn't a stranger at all. He was slightly shorter than him, with whalebone-pale skin and inky black hair, damp and plastered to his forehead. His clothes were dripping with seawater and sticking to his thin, shivering body. His voice, broken and stuttering with cold, was repeating his name over and over, “Corvo Corvo Corvo” like a broken music box stuck on a single note, wide eyes staring into his with such emotion that it almost felt like they were burning holes into his flesh.

Those eyes were what threw Corvo off the most, for they weren't black like he knew them, but the colour of the sea after a storm; blue-green, bright, and rapidly filling with tears.

“C-Corvo,” the man who once was the Outsider gasped out in the voice Corvo thought he'd never hear again, teeth rattling from the cold. “M-my dear Corvo, I…” He seemed to be unable to stop speaking his name, as if it was a lifeline, the only thing holding him from sinking back beneath the waves, dragged down by tendrils of smoke and shadow.

It could've been a trick, an illusion crafted by one of his many,  _ many _ enemies or something equally insidious, but all Corvo could think about was the man who somehow stole his heart and who was standing, shivering, on his doorstep.

“Come in,” he ushered him inside and closed the door, locking it as soon as it slammed shut. Then, he rushed to his wardrobe and pulled out the first set of reasonably warm, dry clothes he could find. Impostor or not, he wouldn’t get anything out of him with his teeth chattering like that.

“You need to get changed or you'll freeze,” he told his guest as the latter gazed at him with those strange green eyes, full of emotion where once there was nothing. “We'll talk once you're no longer shivering.” He helped him out of the drenched clothes and into the dry ones, somewhat too large for his thin, wiry frame. They were close, closer than ever before, but that thought would be dealt with later once he finally found out what in the blazes was going on. 

When the strange man was at last clothed and sitting beside him, two blankets draped over his shoulders and held in place with a pale, bony hand, Corvo finally asked something he really should have asked beforehand.

“Who are you?”

The other man looked up at him, looking somewhat lost.

“I... don't know,” he replied. “I used to the Outsider, but not anymore.”

“Why not?”

What followed wasn't perhaps the strangest story Corvo has heard (or lived through) in his entire life, but it certainly was up in the top three. 

“Fascinating,” was all he elected to say once it was over. “And how can you prove to me that it's all true?”

To that, he received a very simple answer: the man who once was the Outsider leaned forward and kissed him.

~~~

He was back in the Void again, falling through the crumbling ruins with whalesong filling his ears as he tasted seawater and ozone and all the dreams he desperately tried to push out of his memory not because he was ashamed of them, but because he never thought that any of them would ever come true. He had filed them away in the same drawer as those about Jessamine: poisonous ideas of what it could be like to love and be loved in return, the hands holding his warm and alive instead of cold like those of a corpse, the heart given to him still beating and not a mockery of what he once had, could have if only his luck weren’t so goddamn rotten.

Only the Outsider could make him feel this way with his coldness, arrogance, and that goddamn, heart-wrenching indifference.

And yet…

And yet the lips pressed to his were warm, as was the breath that tickled his skin when the Outsider (Corvo only called him that out of habit now) sighed against him, the sound broken and pathetic, as if some clawed, invisible heart tore it out of his throat against his will.

“You have ruined me, Corvo,” he said, still pressed close to him, as if trying to leech out all his warmth. “I do not know how, but you have made me feel. Mere fascination at first, then interest. Affection.” His eyelids fluttered open, long eyelashes tickling Corvo’s cheek. “Love. So many feelings, so many sensations I have long forgotten or which have been stolen from me. Somehow… somehow, you’ve returned them to me.”

Corvo was left cold when he pulled away, those eyes looking at him hesitantly, teeth just a little bit pointier than they should’ve been gently biting his lower lip. The Outsider (outsider?) seemed hesitant, battling an inner turmoil with the desperation of a drowning man caught in a current, unable to escape.

“I love you, Corvo,” he said with devastating sincerity that would’ve cut Corvo’s feet from under him if he weren’t seated. “I… I only came to tell you this, and to…” another pause, and he looked away in what appeared to be shame. “...to see you one more time before you make your decision.”

“Decision?” Corvo repeated, still recovering from the kiss, face flushed and entire constellations of stars swimming in front of his eyes, the hum of the waves singing in his ears. He still remembered the way Jessamine had kissed him, and although those memories were tarnished by time and embellished by nostalgia, this somehow felt a thousand times better. “Wh-what decision?”

The look he received was that of pained resignation. “I know that your heart still belongs to Jessamine,” the outsider said, long fingers toying with the edge of one of the blankets. “If you do not return my feelings, I will understand. If you want me gone from your life because I ruined it, I will understand. If you want to kill me, I will understand. I have no right to demand anything from you after all those years; the only thing I am asking for now is your answer.”

Corvo regarded him thoughtfully for a couple of moments, evaluating all the options laid out to him. Jessamine’s heart was quiet now, replaced by another, laid bare and vulnerable for the first time in his memory. Should he take it, or run it through with a knife?

“You know,” he hummed, “it would be a shame to prove Daud right and ruin all the effort Billie had put into dragging you out of the Void.”

The outsider looked at him with wide eyes, not understanding. Corvo didn’t blame him; he’s never been good with words, preferring his actions to speak for themselves, so that’s what he did.

He leaned forward and kissed him. 

~~~

There was a difference between birth and death, but the two were by no means opposites of one another. The outsider knew what coming to life felt like, and had a vague memory of the feeling that ran through his empty veins when the last drop of his blood left his body. 

Coming to life was a shock; thousands of sensations crashing on top of him while he has barely figured out how to breathe. It was pain, shock, and pins and needles; heat and coldness and too much too quickly. Suddenly he had to breathe, his heart was beating, his eyes were stinging with saltwater and the world was a too-bright, confusing mess he had no idea how to navigate. It was, to put it plainly, awful. No wonder the first instinct of an infant upon leaving the womb was to burst out into tears.

Dying was, on the other hand, gradual. There was pain, too, but that left as his blood was drained away, all warmth left in him replaced by sweet, comforting coldness like a mother wiping her child’s fevered forehead with a damp cloth. There were other feelings beyond pain: fear, sorrow, the like, but those went away as well, leaving behind their smallest, quietest sibling: acceptance. Peace. There was nothing he had to do. Move? He couldn’t. Breathe? It hurt, so why bother? Was his heart beating? If so, not for much longer. Dying was easy. In a way, it was almost pleasant in some sad, twisted way he couldn’t describe.

This, though, the exact moment when Corvo’s lips touched his, didn’t feel like either of those things. In fact, it felt just like dying, but in reverse:

First, just a hint of a change; realisation creeping into his bloodstream that Corvo made his decision and what it entailed. Then, his body registered how close they were, the assassin’s warm, calloused hand resting on his cheek as if to keep him there (he needn't have bothered; his lips were doing a fine job on their own.) Hope, like a hermit crab peeking out of its shell, ready to duck back in at the sight of a predator. 

There were none.

There was only Corvo, kissing him.

Kissing. 

The realisation, sinking in with a feeling like the opposite of his throat being slit. Lost breath, suddenly regained. Still veins, suddenly full of racing blood. Sleeping heart, awoken by the voice of another, beating in a ribcage pressed so close to his, whispering  _ “I love you too.” _

And then, just like during his rebirth, came an avalanche.

He practically threw himself at Corvo, toppling them both backwards and onto the bed, kissing him back with the ferocity and desperation of learning to breathe for the first time, as if he would die if he ever stopped. His arms were alive with pins and needles as he wrapped them around the assassin’s neck, burning where they made contact with his body. He was hot and cold at once, heart like a sledgehammer slamming against the walls of his ribcage as if it was trying to break free, join with the one it belonged to. He wondered if Corvo would carry it around with him, too. It hurt. It felt horrible. It felt wonderful. He never wanted it to stop, would die if it did.

He felt a pair of warm hands rest on his hips to steady him, and then move upwards to cup his face, tangle into his hair, rest on the back of his neck.

“Dear Void,” Corvo’s voice was a broken whine as he looked up at him with obscenely hot, half-lidded eyes. 

“I take it that you would like to know my name?” the outsider couldn’t help but smirk, slowly beginning to regain his footing as his lips travelled lower, kissing along the curve of Corvo’s jaw, moving to nip at his earlobe on their way to rest on his pulse point, thrumming with life underneath a layer of skin so thin that he could feel it with ease. 

“My Mark doesn’t seem to be of much use to you now, does it?” he asked, his hand sliding into Corvo’s. “Shall I mark you once more? In a different way, perhaps? Or maybe you would prefer a gift of a different nature?” Green eyes glittered with mischief. “I have many more of them to give. What will you do with them, I wonder?”

Corvo’s eyes widened at that, locking with the outsider’s green ones, crinkled with delight.

_ “The Heart of the Abyss?” _ he gasped, face heating up instantly. “H-how did you-?” The author was anonymous and the damned play eventually banned, but he had still wasted weeks trying to track them down and, in a rare exception of his no-killing policy, throw them out of a window. If the outsider knew about that nightmare of a book, he would never hear the end of it.

The outsider’s insidious smirk turned into a grin so full of sadistic amusement that he didn’t even need to reply, merely batted his eyelashes in mock seduction. He raised their joined hands and inspected the mark casually.

“What if I am the one who’s really behind it?” 

Corvo had no time to ponder the implications of that because suddenly the outsider’s too-sharp teeth were at his throat, biting hard enough to draw blood and send shivers crashing down his spine as his back arched against his will. He gasped, feeling him lick the blood away, then kiss the sensitive skin around the bite mark, breath searing hot against him as he whispered: “Is this what you want?”

It took a moment for Corvo’s pleasure-fogged mind to comprehend the question, but he eventually managed to string out a coherent reply.

“Yes,” he breathed, then moaned into another kiss as the outsider ground his hips against his. “Do you?”

He hesitated, briefly, brows knitting as he pondered the question. 

“This isn’t something I’ve ever tried before, only had the dubious luck of seeing others do it,” he admitted, shrugging off the one blanket that hasn’t fallen off his shoulders by now. His hair was still a little bit damp. “Why not, though? It can’t be much harder than being reborn as a human, can it?”

Corvo shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Not a fun experience, wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Duly noted. Let me sit up?”

“Mmm, don’t count on it.”

He could’ve probably simply thrown the outsider off of him if he wanted to, but whether that was something he really did want to do was a different matter.

~~~

For all the haste with which Corvo had put him into those clothes of his, the outsider thought, he was even more eager to see him out of them. Not that he was complaining, mind you! It simply felt… nice, yes, to desire and be desired just as desperately in return. His first love on the mortal plane, and it’s reciprocated! There were many less fortunate than him out there, nursing broken hearts in taverns, brothels or gutters, so he had the right to enjoy one of his first feelings not being heartbreak!

Corvo was already half-hard beneath him, having shed his own clothes remarkably quickly given his rather awkward position, naked skin beautiful in the moonlight falling through the open curtains. He would’ve loved to admire him further, but alas, he had his own hunger to sate, red-hot and pooling in his groin. A fascinating sensation, truly.  

It was difficult to keep his cool, though, as Corvo’s every touch tore a gasp or a whine out of him, hands rough against sensitive skin and every sensation enhanced and more pronounced than it had the right to be. Much to his relief, though, Corvo wasn’t very different, keening every time the outsider’s lips made contact with that specific spot on his neck that set his nerves on fire, kissing and sucking and biting and oh gods…

“You’re a goddamn tease,” he growled, wrists pinned down to the bed by a pair of pale, deceptively frail-looking hands, long fingers moving to intertwine with his.

“Why won’t you let me savour you, dear Corvo?” the outsider’s voice shook just a little as his mouth moved away from his neck, trailing kisses downwards, past his collarbone, to enclose around his nipple, tongue circling it expertly and those goddamn teeth only just gracing it, never hard enough to bite. “Do you truly desire me so?”

Corvo threw his head back, an almost animalistic noise clawing its way out of his throat in response. For someone who hasn’t ever done this before, the outsider could play his body like a goddamn fiddle.

A chuckle, bright eyes overflowing with affection and… was it possessiveness? Pupils dilated so that the green was almost gone, teeth bared in an almost predatory grin. Was he actually fully human? And more importantly, did it matter?

“Fuck me already, you bastard,” he rasped.

the outsider raised an elegant eyebrow, grin narrowing to a familiar smirk  _ almost _ masking the glint of insecurity in those strange eyes of his.

“Say it,” he purred, hands splayed over Corvo’s chest, the right pressed just a bit harder over his heart, “and it shall be done.”

There was some oil in the drawer of the bedside table, though Corvo didn’t remember how it got there. He thought that he might have stolen it on accident because it looked like something else? It didn’t matter now, though, as the sight of the outsider’s long, graceful fingers intertwining around his cock to lubricate it made him harder than he had the words to describe. Come to think of it, Corvo didn’t remember the last time he did this sort of thing with a man - possibly a couple of years before he met Jessamine? He remembered a face, blurred with alcohol, dark-skinned fingers in his hair, a hoarse voice gasping and whimpering into his ear… 

Now there was the outsider, looking at him strangely, brows knitted together, seemingly at loss.

That’s right, Corvo realised, he only knew the theory side of things, and that could only get one so far.

“Come here,” he took one of his hands into his own and poured some more oil on it until it dripped from his fingers. “You’re doing great, love. I’ll guide you if you need me to.”

Green eyes widened; realisation, as if he didn’t think that they would actually get this far. For a split second, the outsider looked a lot younger than he was, and Corvo pressed a gentle, reassuring kiss to his lips, free hand cradling his cheek. “We can stop if you don’t want to do this.”

“N-no,” his voice trembled, chest heaving. “I… I want this… w-with you… I just don’t know how…” He pulled away, gaze darting to the side, blush blooming on his pale skin as all of his confidence from before vanished in an instant. Poor bastard’s only been human for a couple of hours, stumbling through the basics of what Corvo didn’t even need to think about; the fact that he even wanted to attempt this was impressive.

“I’ll guide you,” he repeated, softly. “Come here.”

~~~

The tenderness with which Corvo treated him tugged at the outsider’s heartstrings, causing a strange feeling to bloom in his throat, making it more difficult to talk, swallow or breathe. He was scared, plain and simple as that; of messing up, giving Corvo one more gift that would ruin his life somehow, of scaring him away, having him mock him for his lack of experience.

And yet, he did none of those things. He spoke to him gently, softly, like one would speak to a treasured lover (did he really treasure him?) and explained everything, murmuring words of encouragement between kisses as the outsider prepped him, working one finger inside, and then two. It felt strange, yet exhilarating, and seeing the blush spreading on Corvo’s skin and his eyes fluttering shut, breath stuttering in his chest to turn into a choked moan when he entered him was…

“G-gods,” there were tears prickling on the inside of the outsider’s eyelids as he finally settled inside him, the sensation unlike anything he ever imagined, even the tiniest of movements sending liquid fire coursing through his veins and tearing a strained gasp out of his throat, Corvo’s flesh so tight around him… he had no precedent for what it felt like. “Corvo…”

His breath hitched in his throat when he felt those familiar hands cradle his face, calloused thumb wiping a tear that slid down his cheek as he opened his eyes to gaze at the man beneath him, their faces mere inches away.

“You’re doing great,” Corvo told him, pressing their lips together once more for a brief moment. “Do you want to move now?”

He nodded shakily, rocking his hips experimentally and gasping at the surge of pleasure that made his vision go black for a split second. Instinctively, he buried his face in the crook of Corvo’s neck, whimpering quietly as he waited for the tide to retreat.

“Are you alright?” he heard him say, and nodded shakily.

“Yes, it just feels so… so…” Corvo shifted slightly beneath him, making him cry out as their flesh rubbed together once more, voice pitching up and fingers scrabbling to find purchase, gripping the bedsheets around them. “It  _ \- ah! - _ feels so  _ good.” _

“Take your time,” he heard him croon, strong arms wrapping around his neck. “Take it easy, love.”

_ Love. _ The outsider didn’t think that anyone has ever called him that before, not even the parents he had over four thousand years ago. Hearing it for the first time, from Corvo out of all people, made him feel like he was about to fall apart. 

Taking a long, shuddering breath that may or may not have sounded suspiciously close to a sob, he moved, face still pressed into Corvo’s shoulder. They moaned in unison, Corvo’s voice slightly hoarser than his.

“That’s it,” he heard him whisper. “Like that.”

He used to not understand why people had intercourse outside of actively trying to reproduce; after all, that’s what it was for, so why do it at any other time for any other reason? Surely the pleasure wasn’t that good. Now he knew better.

The first few shallow, uneven thrusts almost made him black out from the sheer intensity with which he experienced them, but just like with walking and breathing, the outsider got used to that after a while, even going as far as angling his head to press a grateful kiss to Corvo’s neck, to the mark his teeth have left.

His Corvo.

His.

His alone.

The moans which his thrusts drew out of his mouth were nothing short of divine, dark eyes quickly fluttering shut as the most dangerous man in Dunwall dissolved beneath him, rock-hard with need as they moved, fitting together perfectly, like their bodies were made for no other purpose.

“How long has it been since you’ve done this, I wonder?” the outsider asked breathlessly, finding a slow and steady rhythm that brought both of them pleasure but still allowed him to function reasonably well without the risk of overstimulation. “Have you been holding out for me?”

He was met with a grin. “For you? Whatever gave you such an idea?”

“I’ve been watching you,” he leaned down, pressing his forehead to Corvo’s, “back when I was still the Outsider. You never took a lover after Jessamine, but you would cry out for me in dreams even when I wasn’t visiting you. I wonder…” he kissed him again, hungrily this time, their teeth clashing. He couldn’t get enough of the feeling that came over him every time they kissed. It was intoxicating, fire in his veins, whalesong in his ears, a trapped songbird frantically beating its wings against his ribcage. 

He increased the pace ever so slightly, his thrusts growing longer, surer as Corvo’s hands found his and squeezed, his breath growing ragged, his back arching upwards to desperately grind his cock against his stomach.

“Your name,” he gasped out. “What… you said that you…”

The outsider raised an eyebrow at that, sea-green eyes twinkling with amusement. “Want something to scream?” he asked, letting go of his right hand (but still holding on to his left - Marked - one) to reach between them and give his cock a slow, torturously slow stroke. “Do you want to know my name just so you could cry it out for even the Void to hear when I make you come?”

Corvo surrendered with a weak whimper, barely able to string together a coherent thought, not even mentioning words. He nodded, his hair sticking to his sweat-damp forehead. He could barely hear the outsider’s voice above the buzz of pleasure in his ears.

A chuckle followed by a squeeze that made him see stars.

“Patience, my dear,” the outsider’s whisper sounded in his ear with perfect clarity, breath burning hot and making a shudder crash down his spine.

Patience was one of the few things Corvo didn’t have at the moment, along with the capacity for rational thought, so he used his free hand to lift himself up a bit and kiss it off those smiling lips, and smiling himself when he clenched, tearing a surprised cry out of the outsider’s throat.

“Do not toy with me,” he warned, lifting his hips to take him in deeper before he did something he didn’t think the outsider expected: he slid off him, grabbed him by the shoulders, and rolled them over, pinning him down with a grin, “because I can fight back.”

~~~

This was, indeed, rather unexpected, and knocked the breath out of the outsider’s lungs for more than one reason. Corvo’s quick readjustment also created quite a bit of friction between them, and feeling his weight on top of him felt… He forgot how to breathe for a couple of moments, eyes squeezed shut and mouth hanging open and every single nerve in his body so saturated with pleasure that he thought that the reality around him drifted away for a couple of moments, that it would kill him there and then, his heart simply giving out from how it pounded against his ribs so hard that it hurt. Wouldn’t that make Billie mad?

He managed a chuckle between gasps, managing to open his eyes when he felt Corvo kiss him between his furrowed brows.

“You okay?” he asked. 

“You never cease to fascinate,” he replied, miraculously managing to prop himself up on shaking hands into a seating position with Corvo on his lap. “I’m good. Now  _ move.” _

The command earned him a smirk as Corvo complied, rocking against him slowly at first to get them both used to the new position, then faster to return them to their previous rhythm until they were both panting, dishevelled messes clinging to each other as their movements grew faster and more irregular, their moans gaining in volume as Corvo desperately thrust into the outsider’s fingers, achingly hard and slick with release. Neither of them was going to last much longer if the outsider’s heavy, rasped breathing and the blush spilled all over his face was anything to go by. 

“Corvo, Corvo, Corvo,” he was crying out his name over and over, face hidden in the crook of his neck and clutching him like a lifeline, every breath a sob. “Corvo, my dear Corvo, my love, my -ah!” He curled up on himself, nails digging into the skin of Corvo’s back. He was drowning in an open ocean, currents pulling him deeper and deeper down until he could no longer breathe, vision obscured by the dark waters and… and…

He thought that he blacked out for a moment when he came, weak just like when he first awoke in the mortal world, falling and scrabbling to find purchase, finding Corvo. He was everywhere. Everything. All at once. The world around them crumbled to pieces and they might as well have been back in the Void with the debris of their world floating around them. It was all so much, too much all at once, the sensory overload shattering him into thousands of little bits until he could barely remember who he was, where he was, and whose fingers were running through his hair so gently that it physically hurt in a way he wouldn’t be able to describe even if he were capable of coherent thought.

“Hey,” a familiar voice broke through the haze, a pair of familiar eyes came into focus. “Hey, look at me.”

Corvo. He had finished himself off in a few quick strokes, coming with a silent grunt and wiping his hand in the bedsheets. His hair was an absolute bird’s nest, every strand sticking out in a different direction, his face flushed and covered with a sheen of sweat.

In all four thousand years of his un-life, the outsider thought when he finally came back to his senses, he’s never seen anything more beautiful.

“Can I kiss you again?” he blurted out, not even knowing where the impulse came from but knowing that he needed it more than the air in his lungs.

Corvo then smiled at him, so warmly that it set his skin on fire, and kissed him first, the marked hand still tangled in his hair. As if he would move away, as if he were able to. This kiss was slower and unhurried than the previous ones, feeling like honey probably tastes (he’ll have to find out at some point to compare) and filling the outsider with an inexplicable sense of peace, belonging, as if this was his place in the universe and everything beyond this room, this bed, did not matter. He kissed back, practically melting in Corvo’s embrace both from exhaustion and the sheer tranquillity that overcame him. Whatever horrible things he had done as the Outsider, however many lives he had ruined, and whatever future awaited him, it would all work out. Yes, living hurt in more ways than one, but moments like this one more than made up for it.

They pulled away, Corvo looking at him like he couldn’t believe that he had the honour of holding him in his arms, a mixture of incredulity and pure, unadulterated joy that so seldom graced his tired features.

“I love you,” he whispered, as if speaking up would shatter the spell woven around them.

The outsider smiled back, radiant like the rising sun. He looked nothing like the being used to be, cold and washed out; more Void than person. His green eyes glittered with pure joy, his skin flushed pink and, now that Corvo took the time to study his face up close, there was just the faintest, barest hint of freckles dusting his nose and cheeks.

“And I, you,” he replied, eyes half-lidded, weighed down by exhaustion. Then, he laughed, the most delightful sound Corvo has ever heard, so ridiculously contagious that he couldn’t help but join in, not even knowing what in the blazes they were laughing about. He didn’t remember the last time when he laughed this hard and this genuinely, all burdens lifted off of his shoulders for one glorious moment with the person who meant the world to him. Was it with Emily? Jessamine? Did it really matter?

No. It did not.

“Why are we laughing?”

“I don’t know - I just feel this… strange feeling where my heart is,” the outsider gestured vaguely at his chest. “It kind of tickles.”

“Happiness?”

He nodded. “Happiness.”

Corvo gestured towards the bathroom. “We should probably get cleaned up.” He glanced critically at the sheets. “If you think you can move, that is.” He wasn’t entirely sure if he himself could, to be perfectly fair.

The outsider pondered the matter for a moment before shaking his head.

“Too tired,” he said. “I don’t know what it’s like to fall asleep. Care to teach me that, too?”

~~~

When they were settled underneath a fresh set of covers, the outsider curled happily in Corvo’s arms, head on his chest and listening to his heartbeat (in perfect sync with his own, funnily enough), Corvo and his terrible way with words shattered the perfect moment with a question he really should’ve asked earlier.

“What’s your real name?”

The outsider yawned. “Levi.”

“As in, Leviathan?”

“Don’t push it,  _ Corvid.” _

He laughed. “No, I like it. I really do! I just find it ironic - do you think those priests chose you because of it?”

Levi rolled his eyes, the smallest of smiles tugging at his lips. “Mayhap, but I like to flatter myself that there was more to their choice than this. I’m almost thankful for it, you know.”

“How so?”

He propped himself up on one elbow, eyes practically closing all by themselves but still managing to look at Corvo with more love than they looked at anything in four thousand years. “I wouldn’t have met you otherwise, my dear.”

Corvo smiled up at him, cupping his cheek and smiling even more when he leaned into the touch with a happy “mmm”, warm and alive and real, not a dream that would leave him come morning, alone and miserable.

“I’m glad that you’ve chosen to mark me, then,” he said, falling back on the pillows and tightening the embrace around him. “Wouldn’t have met you otherwise, either.”

The Outsider was no more, would never be again. Whatever will happen to the Void because of this was none of their concern, at least for the time being. For now, they were both tired and sore and happier than words could describe, Levi falling asleep first with Corvo following suit, cradled by the gentle currents of sleep and lulled by the faintest sound of whalesong.

It felt so good to be alive.


End file.
